Gracias A La Vida for Carolina De Robertis
On The President And The Frog & sharing a world where everyone is safe and free
#NuevasPaginasconLupita is an expanded edition of the mini get-to-know the book and author interview series on Instagram aimed to "spotlight" Latinx authors with books out in 2021. The goal is to connect readers to new and/or old favorite Hispanic/Latinx/e authors and their books! So give this & every post a share to help us reach more readers!
How does it work?!
Here’s the deal, I came up with a set of casual/random/funny questions to ask each Latinx/e author I interview. For now, the questions will all be the same but maybe in the future I’ll launch this into more specific questions to the author or maybe I’ll turn this series into a mini-podcast or maybe……well, you get it! The possibilities are endless.
If you are new here don’t forget to check out all the other amazing interviews! We also have a really great line-up of guest authors coming up so make sure you don’t miss an interview by subscribing now!
Hey Heyyy Book Franz!
It has been a while! Did you miss me? I’ve been busy with finishing up my reading for the Aspen Words Literary Prize (the longlist was finally announced so I get to dish more about my experience reading 204 within 4 months - stay tuned), I am trying to finish up my semester in grad school, Mom and wife and fool around on TikTok. I’ve been doing all the things but coming here to you all.
Thankfully today’s very special guest pulled me out of that before the New Year. I won’t keep you any longer from reading the interview with one of my personal hero’s - CAROLINA DE ROBERTIS author of The President and The Frog, her newest and book number 7 for her!
You read that right, SEVEN BOOKS! If you haven’t read any of them - you have some amazing homework to do because her words just hit you directly in the soul.
Could you tell me a bit about where this photo was taken? Is it special to your book in some way?
This photo was taken in my backyard, near the little studio where I write. The lemon tree behind me is the first thing I see when I step out of my writing space, and every time I lay eyes on it I’m nourished in some way – whether it’s a reminder of abundance, or endurance, or the slow yet steady possibilities of growth.
Tell me about your book without telling me about your book - share any literary inspirations behind your book! If there are none, the gap you wanted to fill in the literary canon with your book.
So many literary inspirations! With this particular novel, The President and the Frog, I was particularly inspired by novels that stretch the possibilities of the real in order to convey socially urgent truths, such as Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West, Qiu Miaojin’s Notes of a Crocodile, and Yoko Ogawa’s The Memory Police; and also by the distilled power of slim novels such as Trifonia Melibea Obono’s La Bastarda, Samanta Schweblin’s Fever Dream, and Jacqueline Woodson’s Red at the Bone.
One gap I wanted to fill with this book: to explore the sociopolitical questions facing us in the contemporary U.S, through a Latin American prism. To take the dominant assumptions about which region is “backwards” and where leadership and vision can be found, and to turn them upside down, shake the kaleidoscope, see what else is there.
What are two central themes in your book that you connect with the most and why?
One: the question of how to live radiantly in a world that seems bent on our erasure. Two: the question of how, as individuals and as communities, we can help shape a world where all are safe and free. These two questions are in all five of my novels so far. If I’m honest, they’ve fueled my whole life, both on and off the page. I’m not sure I can write without them.
If a book was home, where would your home be?
Can it be a stack? Can the stack be taller than I am? Can I build a house out of the books overflowing on my shelves? My kids say we “live in a library.” I will not repent.
If your book was a famous musician who would it be?
Wow, what a question! I’d like to think this book would sound like the late great Mercedes Sosa, only her iconic, inimitable folk revolutionary voice would be woven into a jazz-hip-hop-electronica contemporary fusion sound.
What comfort food could a reader pair with your book?
Yerba mate? It’s not a comfort food to everyone, I know. So let’s say, alfajores. I’d love to offer a homemade alfajor to every reader of this book – de nieve, de coco, de chocolate, de lo que sea y con mucho amor.
In what ways has access (or little to no access) to Hispanic/Latinx/e literature defined you as a writer?
I really, really wish I’d found and read Latinx/Latine literature earlier in life. When I was thirteen I stumbled on One Hundred Years of Solitude and gobbled it up. It was my first Latinx or Latin American novel, and it changed me on a cellular level. But then, that was it -- there was so little visibility back then. As an adult, I had to seek out and find the brilliant work of contemporary Latinx writers. Cherríe Moraga’s Loving in the War Years was my first book by a queer Latina writer, and it made me feel more possible like maybe I could fully inhabit the Earth.
Only when I became a published author did I come to understand how many barriers still exist in the publishing industry for Latinx authors. It’s an ongoing struggle. And yet contemporary Latinx literature is alive and bursting with genius. I’ve been blown away by so many recent Latinx books, including those by Naima Coster, Patricia Engel, Jaquira Díaz, Achy Obejas, Angie Cruz, Cristina García, Francisco Goldman, Vincent Toro, Julián Delgado Lopera, Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa, Aya de Leon, and so many more.
Where can readers keep up with your work? (Feel free to include any social media accounts that you'd like readers to follow)
I’m over at @carolina_derobertis here in IG, and at @caroderobertis on Twitter
A huge thank you to Carolina De Robertis for taking the time to chat with me about The President And The Frog! Please please make sure you purchase a copy (or request your local library carry a copy) of her book #SupportLatinxLit!
Synopsis for The President And The Frog from the PRH website:
An incandescent novel—political, mystical, timely, and heartening—about the power of memory, and the pursuit of justice, from the acclaimed author of Cantoras.
“A joy to read. Playful and profound, unearthly yet deeply rooted, this sublime and gripping novel is above all about hope: that within the world’s messy pain there is still room for transformation and healing.”—Madeline Miller, New York Times bestselling author of Circe
At his modest home on the edge of town, the former president of an unnamed Latin American country receives a journalist in his famed gardens to discuss his legacy and the dire circumstances that threaten democracy around the globe. Once known as the Poorest President in the World, his reputation is the stuff of myth: a former guerilla who was jailed for inciting revolution before becoming the face of justice, human rights, and selflessness for his nation. Now, as he talks to the journalist, he wonders if he should reveal the strange secret of his imprisonment: while held in brutal solitary confinement, he survived, in part, by discussing revolution, the quest for dignity, and what it means to love a country, with the only creature who ever spoke back—a loud-mouth frog.
As engrossing as it is innovative, vivid, moving, and full of wit and humor, The President and the Frog explores the resilience of the human spirit and what is possible when danger looms. Ferrying us between a grim jail cell and the president’s lush gardens, the tale reaches beyond all borders and invites us to reimagine what it means to lead, to dare, and to dream.
Bio for Carolina De Robertis from her website:
A writer of Uruguayan origins, Carolina De Robertis is the author of the novels The President and the Frog; Cantoras, winner of a Stonewall Book Award and a Reading Women Award, a finalist for the Kirkus Prize and a Lambda Literary Award, and a New York Times Editors’ Choice; The Gods of Tango, winner of a Stonewall Book Award; Perla; and the international bestseller The Invisible Mountain, which received Italy’s Rhegium Julii Prize. Her books have been translated into seventeen languages and have received numerous other honors, including a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
De Robertis is also an award-winning translator of Latin American and Spanish literature, and editor of the anthology Radical Hope: Letters of Love and Dissent in Dangerous Times. In 2017, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts named De Robertis on its 100 List of “people, organizations, and movements that are shaping the future of culture.” She teaches at San Francisco State University, and lives in Oakland, California, with her wife and two children.
Friendly reminder that the best ways you can support Latinx/e authors and Latinx/e literature is by doing the following:
Leave a review for their books on any website that sells books
Request that your local library carry a copy
Purchase a copy of a friend, family member, your nemesis (hey! I’m sure they read too).
Shout about the book on any social media platform or to your friends and family!
Share this interview widely! Word of mouth does wonders for connecting readers to books.